Afghan girls traded like currency to settle debts

'Want to bring peace'
But Afghan women say this could not be further from the truth.

“By establishing a family relationship, we want to bring peace. But in reality, that is not the case,” said Hangama Anwari, an independent human rights commissioner and founder of the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation.

The group investigated about 500 cases of girls given in marriage to settle blood feuds and found only four or five that ended happily. Much more often, the girl suffered for a crime committed by a male relative, she said.

“We punish a person who has done nothing wrong, but the person who has killed someone is free. He can move freely, and he can kill a second person, third person because he will never be punished,” Anwari said.

A girl is often beaten and sometimes killed because when the family looks at her, they see the killer. “Because they lost someone, they take it out on her,” Naderi said.

There are no reliable statistics on blood feud marriages, a hidden practice. When it happens, the families and elders often will not reveal details of the crime or the punishment.

Tears, anguish
Several years ago in nearby Momand Dara district, a taxi driver hit a boy with his car, killing him. The boy’s family demanded a girl as compensation, so the driver purchased an 11-year-old named Fawzia from an acquaintance for $5,000 and gave her to the dead boy’s relatives, according to the Afghan Women’s Network office in Jalalabad.

Three years ago, Fawzia was shot to death, according to a two-page report kept in a black binder of cases of violence against women.

The story of Malia and the nine sheep illustrates the suffering of girls forced into such marriages.

Malia listened as her father described how he was held hostage by his lender, Khaliq Mohammad, because he could not come up with the money to pay for the sheep, which Ahmad had sold to free a relative seized because of another of Ahmad’s debts.

Ahmad was released only when he agreed to give Malia’s hand in marriage to the lender’s 18-year-old son. Asked how she felt about it, Malia shook her head and remained silent. Her face then crumpled in anguish and she wiped away tears.

Answer was no
Asked if she was happy, she responded halfheartedly, “Well, my mother and father agreed ... “ Her voice trailed off, and she cried again.

Does she want to meet her husband-to-be? She clicked her tongue — a firm, yet delicate “tsk” — with a barely perceptible shake of her head.

The answer was no.

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